Lily Chapter 49: Snap, a harry potter fanfic

A/N: SO. Moving in on 50. We're not quite there yet, but it is imminent. Hanging in the air with every word....*Clara takes a look over at Ariana, notices the look on her face, and moves away from the keyboard as quickly as she can.* After you, of course.

I know you were looking forward to me having a really unique and WOW resolution up my sleeve, but *holds out her t-shirted arms* Nothin' here. Hopefully, this is going to come out well. Sit back and enjoy the ride! *Kicks the flying motorcycle into gear*

Lily

Chapter 49

Lily nearly dropped the music box in surprise. "Sirius," she whispered. "How could my mum have gotten this at Mifflebey's?"

"I dunno. It's just a legend, Lily! I shouldn't have ever told you."

"Well, d'you think I could...talk to Perry Mifflebey? If he's still around?" Lily's eyes were bright and eager, though she couldn't think why. It was a clue, a lead, and that was all that mattered.

Sirius smirked. "Maybe you should've thought about that before telling that Muggle out there that James was trapped in the music box..." he shook his head. "I still can't believe you did that. Anyway, Perry's kind of gone odd over the years. They say he just stays in that house down there at the end of the street, staring at himself in a room full of mirrors. Can we say 'Self-absorbed?' Supposedly, this guy would put that Lockhart prat to shame. He only comes out to visit old wizarding villages. You know, Trissle, Hogsmeade, Pachile, he visits all the best pubs."

Sirius was still talking, Lily knew, but the sound was drowned out by everything falling into place in her mind. If her mother had been that Muggle woman who put the Mifflebeys out of business, and Perry had grown up an orphan, he'd be out for revenge. The chances were slim, but that man who had been at the Three Broomsticks...the one with hawk like grey eyes who had been staring at her...what if that was Perry Mifflebey? What if he had been stalking her without her knowing it? She was suddenly almost happy to be inside the jail cell. If someone who wanted her dead was just up the street, staring and muttering to himself inside a completely mirrored room, she didn't want to be anywhere near it.

Lily was jerked out of her trance by a particularly loud call. "Yoo-hoo! Oh, yoo-hoo!" Sirius was standing at the door of the cell, waving through the bars. "Excuse me, but you with the keys, could you get us out of here? We need to find our friend's father. He has a...um...a Quidditch game, and -"

The guard started backing away slowly, obviously having been warned about the crazy new prisoners, and Sirius broke off with an exasperated sigh. "What is wrong with these people? I mean, no offense to Muggles and all, but they really need to get a clue!"

As Sirius sat down again, Lily flipped the music box latch open and looked down at the mirror. There was James, looking extremely bored and utterly defeated. He was leaning against the side of the music box, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed, shaking his head slowly from side to side. The entrance of light into the mirror seemed to get his attention, because he opened his eyes and faced Lily. He pressed his nose up against the mirror and smiled sardonically, obviously trying to lighten the mood somewhat. She gave a little half-smile at his antics, which continued for a good minute and a half. Then, suddenly, James looked from side to side with a worried look on his face and mouthed something to Lily.

"Sirius, come here. What's James saying?" Sirius looked over Lily's shoulder, trying to decipher the increasingly exaggerated syllables on James's lips.

"Liz...Is? Maybe that's the first word. Is some bunny? Oh, is somebody. Is somebody drumming? Is somebody humming? Is somebody..." Then, Sirius stopped in astonishment as a hand reached seemingly from nowhere, fastened itself over James's mouth, and pulled him backwards. In that one instant, the mirror became just the ice blanket again, and the little box's melody played on with no change.

"Coming," Lily said. "Is somebody coming. That's what James was saying."

Sirius nodded agreeably. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Apparently, somebody was coming. There's more to that mirror -" Sirius tapped the surface "-than meets the eye."

"But who was that? How did he...or how did whoever it was get into my music box? What's going on here?" For the first time in her life, the melody wasn't soothing, it was distracting and almost sinister. She glanced almost angrily down at it, tapped it irritatedly, and was about to snap it shut when the whole world changed. It was almost as though she was going down a very narrow, very fast, very bright white waterslide headfirst, but there was no water here, and it didn't seem to have any direction in particular. For all Lily knew, it simply went on forever.

If the guard had been watching, he would have admitted himself to a mental hospital for seeing two teenagers disappear and a wide-open music box click shut and fall to the floor.